11/19 NASD School Board Meeting Notes

Meeting started shortly after 7:30. Marino and Hensley were absent.

The Blue Eagle Marching Band was recognized for their recent accomplishments at Hershey two weekends ago, and in Maryland this past weekend. The NASD Marching Band is made up of 107 students and of course their supporting teachers, parents and volunteers. Congratulations to all of the hard working members of this fine band.

There was a short presentation on the Forward Bond Sale Resolution ($25M), to go towards partial funding of the new 7-8 building. Locking in the bond rate earlier this year has resulted in a favorable (4.02%) interest rate. After the presentation, the board voted 7-0 to issue these bonds.

Dr. Scott of Northampton Community College gave a presentation on NCC's budget. He presented some interesting numbers regarding NASD student enrollment at NCC. There are approximately 1,800 students attending NCC from NASD. There was a figure that showed 28.6% of NASD students attend NCC. English I and Bowling I were two of the most highly enrolled classes by NASD students. NCC, BASD and NASD is looking at a grant to trend PSSA scores and those students fare in college math. NCC's budget request to NASD is an additional $10,023 (2.00% increase), which of the area districts presented was lower than all but Northampton.

A short presentation was given by Mr. Lynch of D'Huy on the progress of the 7-8 building. From this, it was stated that the retention pond on the lower end of the property could (under a heavy rain) approach 6-8 feet deep. It was also learned from this presentation that the two lower practice fields "will see water" (e.g., possibly flood) potentially from a heavy rain. There are actually two lower fields, the lowest of which would obviously "see water" before the upper field.

The 08-09 budget will first be presented to the board at the Dec 17 meeting. It will be interesting to see what the first draft looks like.

Dr. Lesky's report included a briefing on the recent PA Board of Ed school funding report. The study used three research approaches (1) successful school district, (2) professional judgement and (3) evidence based. It's a good read and interesting to see where all 501 districts line up. I have looked at this previously and have started to compare those "successful" (based on PSSAs) districts and how much those schools are spending per the study. It's interesting, but definitely deserves it's own post at a later date.

Another item on Dr. Lesky's report was HB 1841 regarding school employee (health) benefits. In a nutshell, the state legislature is looking at (possibly) implementing a state wide health insurance benefit for school employees.

There were a few questions during community corner. It was learned that it will cost approximately $1.0-1.5M to convert the current MS school to a 4-5-6 school. The bulk of this work is concentrated in the locker room areas to lower locks on lockers, etc. This will be done next summer. In addition, it was learned that the 4-5-6 bell schedule is being discussed and that currently the admin is leaning toward extending it (compared to the current K-5 bell schedule) by approximately 40-45 minutes. Transportation issues and bell schedules were questioned, but nothing is definitive at this time.

Meeting adjourned around 9:30.